IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/csa/wpaper/2002-05.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do men really have no shame?

Author

Listed:
  • Abigail Barr
  • Bill Kinsey

Abstract

Microfinance is one of the most commonly applied development interventions of our time. It is also one of the most gender-biased. In part, this is due to targeting. However, it might also relate to the emphasis placed by microfinance providers on group-loans. If women have a comparative advantage when it comes to functioning in groups, they might self-select into microfinance provided as group loans, while men seek alternative sources of credit. This paper explores the possibility that such a comparative advantage exists and that it relates to women’s greater propensity to feel shame and/or induce feelings of shame in others. It uses data derived from an economic experiment conducted in 12 Zimbabwean villages to test a series of hypotheses. The findings suggest that men regard others less than women when deciding how to behave; that, even after controlling for this, they are more likely to attract criticism; and that they are no less responsive than women to such shame-inducing, social sanctioning. Finally, while men are no more inclined to sanction others they are less effective than women at effecting a resultant improvement in behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Abigail Barr & Bill Kinsey, 2002. "Do men really have no shame?," CSAE Working Paper Series 2002-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
  • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2002-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2eabf4c7-9f4c-4027-91dc-45d35092f5f3
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "The Economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 792-810, September.
    2. Brown-Kruse, Jamie & Hummels, David, 1993. "Gender effects in laboratory public goods contribution : Do individuals put their money where their mouth is?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 255-267, December.
    3. Eckel, Catherine C & Grossman, Philip J, 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men? Evidence from Dictator Experiments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 726-735, May.
    4. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen, 1995. "Group lending, repayment incentives and social collateral," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-18, February.
    5. Jonathan Morduch, 1999. "The Microfinance Promise," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1569-1614, December.
    6. Dekker, Marleen, 2004. "Sustainability and Resourcefulness: Support Networks During Periods of Stress," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 1735-1751, October.
    7. Goetz, Anne Marie & Gupta, Rina Sen, 1996. "Who takes the credit? Gender, power, and control over loan use in rural credit programs in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 45-63, January.
    8. Wydick, Bruce, 1999. "Can Social Cohesion Be Harnessed to Repair Market Failures? Evidence from Group Lending in Guatemala," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(457), pages 463-475, July.
    9. Gachter, Simon & Fehr, Ernst, 1999. "Collective action as a social exchange," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 341-369, July.
    10. Mason, Charles F. & Phillips, Owen R. & Redington, Douglas B., 1991. "The role of gender in a non-cooperative game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 215-235, March.
    11. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Greig, Fiona & Bohnet, Iris, 2009. "Exploring gendered behavior in the field with experiments: Why public goods are provided by women in a Nairobi slum," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 1-9, May.
    2. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey P. Carpenter, 2005. "Experiments and Economic Development: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0505, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    3. Juan Camilo Cardenas & Jeffrey Carpenter, 2008. "Behavioural Development Economics: Lessons from Field Labs in the Developing World," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 311-338.
    4. Janda, Karel & Turbat, Batbayar, 2013. "Factors Influencing Portfolio Yield of Microfinance Institutions in Central Asia," MPRA Paper 49549, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Nava Ashraf & Dean Karlan & Wesley Yin, 2006. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence From a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 635-672.
    6. Jeffrey P. Carpenter & Amrita G. Daniere & Lois M. Takahashi, 2004. "Social Capital and Trust in South-east Asian Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(4), pages 853-874, April.
    7. Klaus Abbink & Matthew Ellman, 2004. "The donor problem," Economics Working Papers 796, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jan 2005.
    8. Xavier Giné & Pamela Jakiela & Dean Karlan & Jonathan Morduch, 2010. "Microfinance Games," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 60-95, July.
    9. Janda, Karel & Turbat, Batbayar, 2013. "Econometric Analysis of Profitability of Microfinance Institutions in Selected Asian Countries," MPRA Paper 51430, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Asiedu, Edward & Ibanez, Marcela, 2014. "The weaker sex? Gender differences in punishment across Matrilineal and Patriarchal Societies," GlobalFood Discussion Papers 165743, Georg-August-Universitaet Goettingen, GlobalFood, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development.
    11. V. Pelligra, 2005. "Banking with sentiments. A model of fiduciary interactions in micro-credit programs," Working Paper CRENoS 200503, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ozgur Emre Ergungor, 2010. "Bank Branch Presence and Access to Credit in Low- to Moderate-Income Neighborhoods," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(7), pages 1321-1349, October.
    2. Ozgur Emre Ergungor, 2010. "Bank Branch Presence and Access to Credit in Low‐ to Moderate‐Income Neighborhoods," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(7), pages 1321-1349, October.
    3. Gutiérrez-Nieto, Begoña & Serrano-Cinca, Carlos, 2019. "20 years of research in microfinance: An information management approach," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 183-197.
    4. Gregor Dorfleitner & Eva‐Maria Oswald, 2016. "Repayment behavior in peer‐to‐peer microfinancing: Empirical evidence from Kiva," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 45-59, September.
    5. DeanS. Karlan, 2007. "Social connections and group banking," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(517), pages 52-84, February.
    6. Dorfleitner, Gregor & Oswald, Eva-Maria, 2016. "Repayment behavior in peer-to-peer microfinancing: Empirical evidence from Kiva," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 45-59.
    7. Fernando Aguiar & Pablo Brañas-Garza & Ramón Cobo-Reyes & Natalia Jimenez & Luis Miller, 2009. "Are women expected to be more generous?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 12(1), pages 93-98, March.
    8. Mohamed, Toka S. & Elgammal, Mohammed M., 2023. "Credit risk in Islamic microfinance institutions: The role of women, groups, and rural borrowers," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Joel M. Guttman, 2006. "Repayment Performance in Group Lending Programs: A Survey," NFI Working Papers 2006-WP-01, Indiana State University, Scott College of Business, Networks Financial Institute.
    10. Becchetti, Leonardo & Conzo, Pierluigi, 2011. "Enhancing capabilities through credit access: Creditworthiness as a signal of trustworthiness under asymmetric information," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 265-278, April.
    11. Martin Brown & Jan Schmitz & Christian Zehnder, 2023. "Moral Constraints, Social Norm Enforcement and Strategic Default in Weak and Strong Economic Conditions," Working Papers 23.03, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    12. Hasan, Hamid & Ejaz, Nauman, 2013. "Testing for Differences across Genders: A Replication of Ultimatum Game at International Islamic University, Islamabad," MPRA Paper 44923, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Emilios Galariotis & Christophe Villa & Nurmukhammad Yusupov, 2011. "Recent Advances in Lending to the Poor with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(9), pages 1371-1390, July.
    14. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Chowdhury, Prabal Roy & Sengupta, Kunal, 2014. "Sequential lending with dynamic joint liability in micro-finance," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 167-180.
    15. Barr, Abigail & Dekker, Marleen & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2012. "Bridging the Gender Divide: An Experimental Analysis of Group Formation in African Villages," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 2063-2077.
    16. Luminita Postelnicu & Niels Hermes & Ariane Szafarz, 2014. "Defining Social Collateral in Microfinance Group Lending," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, in: Roy Mersland & R. Øystein Strøm (ed.), Microfinance Institutions, chapter 10, pages 187-207, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Guush Berhane & Cornelis Gardebroek & Henk A. J. Moll, 2009. "Risk‐matching behavior in microcredit group formation: evidence from northern Ethiopia," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(4), pages 409-419, July.
    18. Xavier Gine & Dean Karlan, 2006. "Group versus Individual Liability: A Field Experiment in the Philippines," Working Papers 940, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    19. Hermes, Niels & Lensink, Robert & Mehrteab, Habteab T., 2005. "Peer Monitoring, Social Ties and Moral Hazard in Group Lending Programs: Evidence from Eritrea," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 149-169, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth
    • P - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2002-05. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Julia Coffey (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.